UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS NEWSLETTER Proposed MINERAL INDUSTRIES BUILDING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Here industrial research in the production of Kansas minerals will be carried on, and the youth of the state will be trained in their development. Departments of geology, petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, mining engineering, and the State Geological Survey will be located here. University Would Develop Kansas’ Mineral Resources in New Building ROWDED into sub-basements of Haworth Hall and in subterranean rooms gouged out from under the back of Hoch Auditorium are the facilities of the State of Kan- sas for actual scientific research in developing the state’s second most extensive source of wealth—mineral indus- tries. This fall many interested persons and groups have ex- pressed their hope that the next legislature will grant an appropriation for a Mineral Industries Building. Oscar S. Stauffer, K.U. Alumni President, made a strong statement regarding it Oct. 12 before a meeting of the Alumni Board and others in which he pointed out that a building of this sort would be one of the most productive investments which the State of Kansas could make. Has Resources Worth DervELOPING f With its mineral industries yielding 154 millions of dollars a year, and with more mineral weath than any of the famous mining states of the the West, except Cali- fornia, Kansas does have a secondary source of wealth worth developing and worth training men to develop. Lat- est figures show this state ranking seventh among all states in mineral sales and fifth among oil producers. The first natural resource of Kansas is agriculture ‘and the state has recognized this by setting apart a special college and several experimental farms devoted to its study and development. Yet research facilities for the state’s secondary source of wealth are crowded in a maize of underground rooms in two buildings at the University. In order to alleviate this situation and to provide space and equipment for use of University professors, research fel- © lows, and students, the University is asking for a Legisla- tive appropriation to build a Mineral Industries building. Two vital reasons for the proposed building can be given: the need to centralize the University services adapted to the industrial development of the state, and the necessity to provide adequate quarters for these de- partments, both for teaching and research. Under present conditions, extensive research is impossible and teaching is greatly hampered in Haworth Hall which is crowded to the corridors. Witt House Five DEPARTMENTS The new building, if erected, will house the depart- ments of geology, petroleum engineering, mining engi- neering, chemical engineering, and the Kansas Geological Survey. It will cost $396,500. The proposed structure, to be built west of the engi- neering buildings, would be the first new building erected through legislative funds since Snow Hall in 1927. Later construction on the campus has been done through gifts of Mrs. Elizabeth Watkins and other friends of the Uni- versity. These include Watkins Memorial Hospital, the Student Nurses Home and Miller Hall, gifts of Mrs. Wat- kins, and three men’s dormitories, gifts of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Battenfeld, alumni and students. ve 7 cd Five Rresearcu Projects UNDER Way Five research fellows are at. work now at the University on a grant given by the 1939 Legislature. One is doing a study of Kansas oil pools to ascertain production rate, another on earth building blocks for low cost housing, a third on tourist travel in Kansas, a fourth on electrolytic chlorine from Kansas salt and a fifth on manufacture of pure carbon.